I’m not sure why but the media always refer to rich Russian and Ukrainian political bosses as “oligarchs.” So when do we start giving Donald Trump the same title?
If you look up “oligarchy,” you will find it means government by the rich. And if ever there was a true believer in government by the rich, it’s Trump. Not just government by the rich but for the rich.
His cabinet is made up mainly of billionaires. His budget – and tax reform – proposals siphon money away from the poor to further enrich the wealthy. And he is touting a Republican health insurance do-over that would give the rich a tax break while leaving millions of poor Americans uninsured.
Trump might even be described as a Russian oligarch. After all, a lot of Russian rubles have passed through his hands. But he apparently handled a lot of suspect American dollars, too. His Taj Mahal casino, for example, paid $10 million to settle money laundering charges a couple of years ago.
An article in the Financial Times summed up his murky past this way:
Over the years (Trump) has assembled an eclectic collection of backers and collaborators. Some had checkered pasts, with links to organized crime or fraud schemes.
The article accused Trump of having “multiple ties to an alleged international money laundering network.”
These accusations were published not only in the Financial Times but in various other media outlets. The Washington Examiner, for example, reported::
His (Trump’s) ties to the mob have been documented by the New York Times, BBC, and other news organizations, and largely revolve around his involvement in a money-laundering scheme dating to the 1990s.
So, we might describe him as a global oligarch.
I’m not sure what that term implies but I don’t believe it’s anything good.
What the Financial Times found
